Is serving in Iraq legalized suicide?

[wuushew]

For a country that has numerous anti-suicide laws why do we praise military service that kills on average over one solider a day out of 130,000+ personnel? Why should people who choose the safety of domestic property crime or poverty be less respected than those who have and are still joining the military based on reasons now proven false?

Is the difference intent or degree? No one is prosecuted for driving an SUV, practicing farming or being a police officer. Yet risk of injury or death is higher than the societal average.

Is it the so called nobility of the cause aka spreading Amerikan style democracy worth the blood both Iraqi and American shed? Given that we are all mortal creatures can any conflict be justified by the nature of the combatant's intentions alone? Despite Vietnam Amerikan hubris is alive and well and quite willing to inflict happy accidents on the rest of the world.

How can one philosophically reconcile the contradictions of armed conflict. Does war have structure or like anything else is just the chaotic interaction of political corruption and irrational human behavior?

[212demop]

1. murder.

[wuushew]

2. But most of them don't view themselves that way

The results are the same, I suppose its like the difference between man-slaughter and murder one.

[212demop]

3. No- they are victims of murder, by the government